Nobel-crowned EU risks future as a loveless marriage

Europe is facing an intense period of reshaping and rebuilding that will severely test its Nobel-recognized abilities to foster peace and prosperity on a fractious continent

By Paul Taylor / Reuters, PARIS

Illustration: Mountain People

The EU’s Nobel Peace Prize comes just as realization is dawning that Europe’s single currency — the EU’s most ambitious project — has survived three years of incessant financial turmoil and is not going to break up. Having narrowly avoided an acrimonious divorce and the loss of some of its errant children, the eurozone risks a future as an unequal, loveless marriage, with frequent rows and the prospect of separate bedrooms.

Two things have become clearer in the past few weeks that were widely disputed before — contrary to prevailing opinion earlier this year, the euro is here to stay and it could very probably keep all 17 members and add more in future — but the eurozone has not yet found a way out of the doldrums of economic stagnation, unemployment and social dislocation that are widening the gap between northern and southern Europe, and fueling euroskeptical populist movements in many countries.

Three events have changed the outlook for the eurozone:

‧ The European Central Bank (ECB) put a floor under the eurozone by agreeing last month to buy unlimited quantities of bonds of any troubled member state that accepts the conditions of a bailout program. ECB President Mario Draghi made clear the bank would use all its tools to defeat anyone betting on a breakup of the monetary union.

‧ The eurozone’s permanent rescue fund came into effect last week after months of wrangling and legal challenges, providing a 500 billion euros backstop for countries that risk losing access to capital markets.

‧ German Chancellor Angela Merkel signaled by visiting Athens that the EU’s most powerful economy wants Greece to stay in the eurozone, drawing a line under months of debate in Berlin, notably in her own coalition, about ejecting the Greeks.

Coincidentally, a flood of scenarios for the explosion and breakup of the euro that spewed out of the banks and political risk consultancies of London and New York for months has suddenly dried up.

In currency markets, short bets against the euro have subsided. Bond yields have fallen and bank shares have recovered. Spanish banks are having to borrow less from the ECB as some regain access to the money markets.

In another micro-indicator of a changed climate, economists at US bank Citigroup have revised their view that Greece will almost certainly leave the euro, saying key eurozone players seem to have decided a Greek exit would do more harm than good.

The US bank lowered the probability of a “Grexit” to 60 percent from 90 percent, although it still believes Greece is more likely than not to leave the euro within 12 to 18 months, arguing that European governments are unlikely to agree to waive part of the country’s huge debt to make it sustainable.

Do not write off a write-off, though, especially if it can be delayed until after next year’s German general election. It may then seem a more rational, albeit unpopular, option than a disorderly Greek default and exit, with all the disastrous economic and social consequences for both Greece and Europe.

One voice last week jarred with the easing of European existential anxiety — the IMF said the EU’s policy response remained “critically incomplete, exposing the euro area to a downward spiral of capital flight, breakup fears and economic decline.”

In its role as an uncomfortable truth-teller, the IMF is trying to jolt the eurozone, especially Germany, into moving ahead faster with a banking union and closer fiscal integration as well as altering the policy mix between austerity and growth.